- submitted by S. Matthews on 05/08/2008
Room-Temp Beer and Topless Darts? No Thanks!
By Sarah Matthews
Sunday evenings I have to stay in. No matter what. Because Sunday is Pub Night, a holy event reserved exclusively for the (British) males of the species. I am not allowed to join in because, quite simply, I don't have a penis. To be honest, I also don't have the capacity to down three or four pints of room-temperature beer, so I don't really mind.
My husband used to complain that all the men in the neighbourhood were rich bankers or hedge fund managers, and thus (almost) too boring to sit opposite and down a swift half. So he began drinking alone at home, chewing cashews, glugging down red wine and alternating between burping and farting, which was worse than having him guiltily slither off to the pub.
Then he met Drew, a professor at London School of Economics, and Pete, a failed novelist and overall man of leisure who owns a couple of properties that keep him in clover (and beer). They were joined by another Pete, who's in IT, and Nigel, a marketing man who my husband thinks is an arse [translation: ass] Together, this unsavory fivesome meet at our "local" to discuss football (that's soccer to you), football and football. Oh, and football. And occasionally snooker. And sex.
There's something about the British male - perhaps all males - that is infantile in the extreme. Make sure an Englishman's (or a Scotsman's or Welshman's, for that matter) base needs are met, and he's happy as Larry. A recent TV commercial for the Sunday Sport, a tabloid "newspaper" where THREE-IN-A-BED LESBO ROMP is the front-page headline, with accompanying photo of a trio of scantily-clad blondes snogging, legs akimbo, sums it up. "Men! We know what you like!" the advert says. "Football! Girls! Funny stuff! Buy the Sunday Sport and you'll get it all!"
Indeed, it seems that is what the majority of men want. And over here, they are getting it. By the bucketload. No political correctness for the Brits, thank you. Not only newspapers, but a lot of magazines and loads of TV programs are designed to titillate the men, at the expense - or incredulity at their sheer inane stupidity - of us women.
Time was when topless darts was the hottest thing on telly (this was before high-quality shows like Celebrity Love Island hit the small screen). Imagine a seriously enhanced faux blonde, naked from the waist up, aiming a large dart at a small dartboard in slow motion, moist lips pursed in concentration, chest heaving up and down, back and forth, up and down, back and forth, up and... you get the picture.
So every Sunday, in small pubs across Britain (many with stupid "new" names like Slug and Lettuce and Ye Olde Slaughtered Pig), troops of workaday suburban men meet in packs to chew packets of Pork Rinds and peanuts, drink bitter with names like Old Speckled Hen, London Pride and The Bishop's Finger (no, really), and talk about Football, Girls and Funny Stuff. Funnily enough, I doubt most of it is funny.
You want to know the saddest thing? The saddest thing is that for months I have tried to set up a Thursday night pubfest for us ladies, a women-only affair where a group of us mums can meet up for our own drinking session, complain about our monstrous husbands and monster kids and let off a bit of steam.
Problem is, by the time we've finished work, made the kids dinner, bathed them and put them to bed and made a meal for our husbands so they'll have something to eat while we're out, we're all too damn tired to show up.
Sarah Matthews is an American journalist who has lived in a north London suburb for more than a decade. She is married with three young daughters and has chosen a pseudonym - and fake names - to protect the guilty (and avoid lawsuits). But everything she writes is real....read more rants
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